Kenny Chesney Sings Songs For The Saints

After storms devastated the Caribbean, the country star is putting his music—and his money—where his mouth is

- Sarah Rodman

IF KENNY CHESNEY ACTUALLY WORE SLEEVES, HE would be wearing his heart on one of them. As it is, the singer-songwriter’s emotions are apparent from his red eyes as he chokes up discussing the circumstances surrounding the recording of his new album, Songs for the Saints, out July 27.

“I wasn’t prepared for the amount of destruction I saw,” says Chesney, reliving the moment he returned to his part-time home on St. John following the havoc wreaked in the Caribbean by Hurricane Irma in September 2017. “My heart broke for all those people that I had lived with and loved with. A huge part of my adult life was—and still is—spent down there.”

Indeed, as the 50-year-old East Tennessee native recounts the tale of the “apocalyptic” storms—while sitting on his tour bus on a recent, scorchingly hot day in Phoenix—nearly 50,000 fans are filing into Chase Field, sold in part on Chesney’s tales of easy, breezy island life. The guitars-and-tiki-bars flavor of hits like “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems,” “When the Sun Goes Down,” and “Pirate Flag,” as well as his high energy live shows, have helped Chesney win a combined eight CMA and ACM Entertainer of the Year trophies, making him among the most bankable stadium acts in any genre of music for more than a decade, and coalescing a massive fan base known as No Shoes Nation.

But last September, he wasn’t contemplating margaritas or the roar of the crowd. He was in Nashville, worried sick about his friends and family, 17 of whom were hunkered down in his house on St. John, which held together long enough for them to emerge unscathed. “I was constantly on the phone,” he recalls.